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Jeremy Goode
Skills Jeremy's skills are entirely mundane, and while they couldn't exactly fill a book, they can be pretty useful from time to time. He is a mathematical genius and is knowledgeable in a number of scientific fields, although he's no longer entirely equipped to use said knowledge. While he still remembers most - if not all - of his studies, his schizophrenia has significantly taken its toll on his understanding of said studies, and it now requires far more concentration for him to make sense out of any of it. That said, he's proficient at spotting errors and mistakes; it's probably one of the two contexts in which he can truthfully say he's observant. The other is this: if facing, say, an elaborate scientific formula or mathematical equation, he finds it easy to pay extreme attention to detail in the shortest of timescales. On a final note, it must be said that his book-smartness overshadows all other aspects of his intelligence, and this could be the greatest shortcoming of all his skills. Now, as a stark contrast, his weaknesses could fill a book - perhaps even a series of books, if one was so inclined. To begin with, he's a terrible liar when prompted with the subject of his mental health. He frequently tries to cover his insanity up and yet often gives up the hopeless facade within five seconds of constructing it in the first place. However, if he doesn't have to mention it, it is possible for him to create the illusion of a normal person for a short period of time. His ability to lie about other unrelated topics is apparently unaffected; for this, I would blame his foray into Pandoran politics. He is physically quite puny (though useful with a pair of scissors), and is pretty easy to take down in a fight. This is an action that many are happy to take, and that's often Jeremy's own stupid fault. He's incredibly relentless (or 'incredibly annoying', as some might put it) with regards to his work, and isn't below confronting those in the way of productivity. As long as he doesn't think you're going to kill him, anyway. But one supposes it's not entirely his fault (not that his personality helps much). He would certainly blame all of this on the Silent Singer. You could say that the Silent Singer is not all bad. After all, his resultant dedication can be useful from time to time. However, when it turns up, it often renders him emotionally weak. He'll get paranoid that it'll show up once more. And worst of all, it'll tell him something's a little off (and thus that Jeremy must fix that immediately). He's used to its appearances by now. But as he goes to all that trouble to hide his insanity from the majority of the outside world, it's very easy to use it as a tool of manipulation, as long as you put something at risk: perhaps something vague like 'order' or 'productivity', or precisely what's keeping him sane at the minute. And if it's effective enough, chances are he'll begrudgingly do your bidding. After all, no one wants to look deranged, right? Personality (Jeremy's schizophrenia is... sketchily portrayed, in the show. To cover for that I'm reading a lot into the acting.) Jeremy is an odd little man, pedantic and meticulous to the nth degree. To him, the greatest virtues of life are dedication and organization; he can't quite understand those who cannot live by at least one of the two and often wonders if such people should be reevaluating their lives. Chaos is his metaphorical worst enemy; those who wish only to create it may find themselves a nemesis in Jeremy... not that he can put up much of a fight about it. (On a side-note, he is generally not afraid to inform you of errors you might be making.) While he may believe in a more systematic way of life, this is only half down to his nature. He was not forced to put such faith in it before the Silent Singer. {C}A sufferer of schizophrenia, Jeremy has only officially been diagnosed with the paranoid subtype, but the current severity of his symptoms match residual schizophrenia better. He has apparently found an excellent method of coping with the disorganized thought-patterns characteristic of the disorder; by using small cues (such as a clenched fist or tiny pause in his wording), he may reorder his thoughts and speech into near-coherence. He may use other body language to draw attention away from visual cues. The most common manifestation of his psychosis comes in the form of the visual hallucination known as the Silent Singer; it is a humanoid, red-bespectacled creature with sharp teeth, blond plaited pigtails, and a mismatching ensemble of clothes. It constantly mimes a nameless song into a cane, with an animated gait and a focused, mildly goading expression. (It is apparently male but 'he' and 'it' are used interchangeably as pronouns. I'm not quite sure why, but now it's just to keep the narration consistent.) It's basically the embodiment of Jeremy's negative emotions, hence why it's fitting that it appears when 'things aren't right'. This, of course, includes if he is placed in an overly chaotic situation, but also stretches to the witnessing of irresponsibility or needless acts of violence or destruction (which are all pretty chaotic in themselves). It is fond of waiting around corners, lurking just out of Jeremy's line of sight, or emerging from behind various objects. Though he hallucinates incredibly frequently, his delusions are few and far between. If under considerable amounts of tension, he may believe that the Silent Singer is real, but when the stress is relieved, he is entirely aware of its place in fiction. The more things that go wrong for Jeremy, the more the Silent Singer will bother him. It may look like it's trying to torment him (and honestly, Jeremy has had that suspicion for a long time), but in reality, it is just trying to get him to do something about the issue that made it materialize in the first place. As its appearances increase, it'll attempt to help him stop the chaos by suggesting plans, all morally disagreeable in varying intensities - often culminating in the worst acts one can think of. Jeremy doesn't always follow through on these suggestions, but he has gotten pretty close to complete obedience before. If he reaches a particularly bad spot in his life, there's a great chance the Silent Singer will make it unbearable, resulting in him having a breakdown. Although he hates the way his hallucination manages to control his life by interrupting almost everything he does, he has unintentionally adapted to its low tolerance of misfortune, and due to this, he may overreact to mildly 'bad' situations - whether that reaction's visible or not. Jeremy believes he will be sectioned at some point, and he would not take to committal lightly... but despite this opinion, he actually quite enjoyed his time in Ravenhill. It's very often that he thinks back to that time as a method of staving off the misery his life often entails. He does not currently take medication, and would probably refuse it if it were offered. Though antipsychotics have previously helped him deal with his disorder, even the weakest dose would make him worry about the effects it might have on his mind. As much as he'd love the Silent Singer to go away for good, he suspects that he has grown to rely on its prompting for motivation. Worse still, he could be right. He's easily irritated and tends to get worked up over the smallest problems; he feels a deep urge to set things right - whether his actions preserve the good opinion of others or not. He's very much willing to set aside personal relationships for the sake of his sanity, and 'chaos'/'disorder' is a widely-ranging (though not always consistent) trigger. If you provoke him intentionally, he may poorly try to hold his own, but you'll probably find it quite easy to get under his skin. He may be intelligent enough to know when he's being manipulated, but he's so vulnerable that he usually hasn't the strength to stop it from happening. Under a stressful situation, there are all the chances he'll descend into raving (albeit softly-spoken) lunacy... but that melodrama's mostly saved for the worst of days. When circumstances are better, it's still pretty easy to notice if he's feeling rough, if only through his tone of voice. However, his positive emotions register on far lower levels. He prefers to keep social situations quite formal, and does not often externally show if he's thrilled or overjoyed by a turn of events. This is partially because he dislikes drawing attention to himself, but it must be admitted that it's also because he wants to perpetuate the myth that he is a bit of a stoic. He has been manipulated a great many times, so putting on a brave face is important to him. While he thinks quite highly of his aforementioned principles, his ego is still pretty weak (to clarify, the absolute only reason he wishes to be known for his subtlety is because he doesn't want to become a walking target). Due to this, he rarely (if ever) cares to talk about himself, and often feels uncomfortable and suspicious when people ask him about his insanity. He may eventually trust those who only wish to offer a sympathetic ear, but it'll take some time. That said, he is pretty open about the topic if he has enough faith in the person he's speaking to; specifically, he needs to know that they wouldn't give the information over to a third party. More generally on the topic of social adeptness, Jeremy is a little awkward. He can enjoy talking to others, but often finds the briefest of social interactions to be a waste of his time, time which could be better spent on worthier pursuits. Though he has definitely come a little further out of his shell since arriving in Pandora, he is still not that outgoing, preferring to leave it to works of literature and the like to keep him company. He does not consider anyone a friend unless he feels he can trust them completely, and that's a rare occasion in itself; instead, he keeps a great number of polite acquaintances (with the odd less-than-polite acquaintance thrown in the mix). Sometimes the information on Jeremy's insanity just 'spills out', as an excuse for something or other... and he immediately feels regret for mentioning it afterwards. He ends up regretting quite a lot of the things he says in casual conversation, which mainly comes from the insecurity that his madness is coming off as blatant (and in many contexts, it has to be said that it can be pretty obvious). As for romance, he's never been attracted to either sex enough to feel the need to do anything about it, so he doesn't see much use in starting now. Actually, one could say that Jeremy is married to his work, if you'll excuse the cliché. He is most definitely a workaholic (accompanied by the complimentary addiction to caffeine) and tends to put a lot of pressure on himself to maintain an extreme level of commitment, no matter what his occupation may be. Jeremy's willing to be manipulative for the sake of his work, but in the process, he makes a lot of threats he can't follow through on - for example, threatening acts of violence he would never voluntarily carry out. (He'd be worried about what the receiving end would do to him. He might have some strange values, but there are times when glimmers of common sense shine through.) Since he was pulled into Pandora, Jeremy has undergone quite a bit of character development. In the gentlest of terms, he has learnt not to be such a confrontational prick. He has also discovered that he's more lonely than he might once have admitted. He has generally mellowed a bit to compensate for the allies he has had to gain, not to mention the multiple attacks on his psyche... and he has gotten better at lying. Overall, he's grown as a person, but he still has some way to go before he's happy with himself... Appearance Jeremy looks pretty normal, on the whole. His taste in fashion is especially normal; he dresses pretty much exclusively in suits of various dark colours, mostly browns, greys and blues (with even the occasional pinstripe, since his entrance into Pandora). Usually underneath the suit is a dark jumper, striped tie and white shirt, with large cuffs extending out of the sleeves of his jacket. His clothes seem a little over-sized for his bony frame. He has quite a full face (which he blames on the antipsychotics) and large blue-green eyes, which often seem quite uneasy. His greatly emotive eyebrows and distinctive worry-lines don't help this appearance much. Sprouting from his scalp is a short, side-parted hairstyle; a wavy piece of hair always separates itself from the flock to hang down the side of his forehead. He wears silver-framed, oval-shaped glasses. Normally, he will carry a neutral, mildly anxious expression, rarely cracking a smile from his small mouth that isn't 'weak' or 'slight' in some way. He suffers from frequent but subtle eye-twitches. Jeremy's tone is soft, clear and always a little mannered. He speaks quickly but with the occasional minuscule pause, as if he is mentally editing his words (which, in all fairness, he is''doing). Occasionally, he may glance over to the Silent Singer, even when occupied with something else; this can be quite a giveaway of his insanity. He also uses very subtle body language, not liking to look like a walking cliché - but for someone who often speaks in either a borderline whisper or theatrical scolding (usually directed towards his hallucination), that claim isn't very valid. Relationships Alice Baskerville - Jeremy finds her a tad bratty, but her state as a Chain is fascinating... plus, his own problems pale in comparison to hers. Hazama - definitely hates this guy. Not only did he attempt (and fail) to gain Jeremy's trust for nefarious purposes, but he had the nerve to try and screw his mind up even further. Hiccup Haddock - Friendly acquaintances; they met as part of Maud's (now Arthur's) council. Though they don't share too much common ground it's nice to have a nice conversation now and again, not having to worry about his psychosis obviously coming to light. Dr. John Watson - though they only met once, Jeremy doesn't mind him at all! It's nice to know there's someone around who might actually be sympathetic to his problems. Jonathan Crane - Er... Jeremy doesn't know much about Crane, other than that he's a psychologist. That makes him ''dangerous in his view. Granted, nothing has become of their knowing each other yet. Joshua Kiryu - Argh, what can we say about Joshua? Basically... Jeremy hates him. He doesn't care why Joshua might be manipulating his situations around or even just why he bothers with him at all. He just harbours a certain hate for the guy that has seldom been reproduced anywhere else. Joshua makes him feel small, like a toy to be thrown around and broken. He hopes not to run into him again. Keiichi Maebara - for a teenager he seems pretty mature. Kind of reminds Jeremy of himself at that age. Kikuri - a total brat and one he doesn't wish to run into again. Pennywise - a terrifying abomination, the likes of which Jeremy had never seen before Pandora. It's nice to know It actually exists since he would hate to cause such bother over a hallucination (hahaha, the hypocrite), but simultaneously, Jeremy's life would have been easier without him around. Randle McMurphy - okay so Jeremy reaaally isn't sure about this guy. He's friendly enough but who knows, he's probably not paying his tax which makes him a problem. Also he took Jeremy to a strip club. JEREMY. lololol. Samus Aran - met Jeremy briefly while battling Pennywise. Jeremy doesn't really know what to think of her, other than that she's very powerful, has not tried to kill him, and has common sense on her side. That's always pretty good. Sherlock Holmes - Jeremy doesn't like him much, given that Sherlock knew what was wrong with him almost immediately after they met. Still, he did shine some light on just how obvious his psychosis was and made Jeremy vow to hide it better. The Medic - pretty good friends! It's always nice to know such a madman is on your side, plus, Jeremy feels rather sane in comparison to Medic. I like to think he sometimes pays Medic a visit to watch his weird, dangerous, and often unnecessary medical experiments, but I haven't really discussed such off-screen events with Kraken. The Scout - since their thread isn't complete I'm not sure yet. He probably finds the kid pretty annoying, though. History Jeremy Goode was born in the North of England to a family that simply didn't want him. They just hadn't the means or the motivation to care for him. And so, he was put up for adoption as quickly as possible, eventually moved into the care of a fairly well-off couple in the suburbs of London. He was immediately sent to an independent preparatory school. Now, one might hope that a boy of his above-average intelligence would feel a bit at home there, but that was just not the case. He was hot-housed in almost every class to ensure that the school statistics remained as close to perfection as possible; this is where he learnt the attitude that failure was not an option. Taking it from a Freudian view, this doctrine was to blame for a number of his personality defects. Most of his classmates treated him like dirt, ignoring him during the day and dealing him threats and beatings after school; word had spread that he was adopted from a poor family. Unfortunately, Jeremy was never told about this fact, so for a great many years, he remained oblivious to the idea that his 'parents' were not technically relatives. His parents occasionally complained to the school, to which they replied that as the incidents all occurred after school hours, it wasn't technically their problem. Eventually they gave up trying to help; Jeremy seemed to be learning to deal with it, via isolation. He put all his free time into either various books or studying, rather than attempting to reach out to anyone... and he didn't care for those who gave him sympathy, not even his carers. As a teenager, Jeremy kept a similar attitude to the outside world; in the process, he began taking an interest in two subjects in particular: neuroscience and the music of Karlheinz Stockhausen. Not much else happened in this time period, save perhaps his admission into a good university. He graduated with multiple prestigious qualifications, ones apparently good enough to have him employed to do research for a nearby laboratory. Unfortunately, he did his job a little too well, working efficiently for a good few weeks, on less than an hour of sleep. He eventually collapsed of exhaustion. More than once. This led to a series of incidents which eventually landed him in Ravenhill Psychiatric Hospital, an asylum on the coast. His first month was pretty normal; he felt rather bad for having to leave work behind but chose to keep quiet, having heard stories of the reputation of the woman in charge: the ostentatious, sadistic Edwina Kenchington. The patients in his category were on a rota to take her breakfast each morning, and on one particular occasion, he took notice of the complicated equations written on the blackboards about her office. He found an error in the way a section was inputted, notifying Kenchington of this as soon as he could. She was indignant at the correction at first, but soon realized she could put his intelligence to her advantage, and so for the next few months, he assisted her with her project: a formula to reanimate the human brain after it had ceased to work. By six months, Jeremy was completely cured of his exhaustion, but as he was immensely enjoying the challenge of the work, he didn't want to leave. So he lied about having hallucinations, most of them related to a 'Silent Singer' (whose original appearance was just based on a patient walking by). His fake schizophrenia/phreniform disorder was bought into (well, that or he was suspected to be a psychopath), and nothing could make him feel more liberated than being denied release. He continued his work with Kenchington, but as irony would have it, three years in, he ended up developing real schizophrenia. (It was something he could have inherited from either side of his biological family; in some ways it was inevitable. Throughout the years he worked for her, he had also been an accessory to various acts of torture and the occasional murder, which can't have helped his mental state.) The Silent Singer decided to start paying him visits whenever he hit hurdles within the research. But Jeremy wasn't shocked in the slightest by its interruptions. In fact, at the very beginning, he appreciated its 'help'. He thought it was helping him manage his frustration... but his opinion changed rather quickly. During his time in Ravenhill, he was prescribed multiple combinations of antipsychotics, which sluggishly weakened the effects of his disorder and allowed him to continue the research. But as he had to get used to the strange thought patterns that warranted his diagnosis, the project's progress was considerably slowed down. However, after seven years, a feasible formula had been created... but the technology was not advanced enough to test it out, at the time. Kenchington didn't need Jeremy anymore, and released him without a word. He was 'cured', apparently. His schizophrenia had gotten easier to deal with, and he soon received a position at Brooke Street Library. Things were pretty good for a while; he could cope admirably and continued taking his prescribed medication... till he heard the news that his precious Ravenhill had exploded, all thanks to Kenchington's son. He experienced a quick deterioration over three months, denying that things were getting worse. In April 2010, a few months after the explosion, Rachel Groves, a customer, had the misfortune of losing the library book 50 Great Coastal Walks of the British Isles, Volume 2. The Silent Singer was not happy; it urged Jeremy to stalk her till she returned the book. His final move was to kidnap her dog and hold it hostage, so in return, Rachel gave him Volume 1 and set him up to be arrested. Things were hazy till he was sent to the interview room of the police station. In return for 50 Great Coastal Walks..., Jeremy was interviewed about his time in Ravenhill Hospital and the nature of the Silent Singer... but when he was left alone for a moment, he opened the book to find that all the pages were blank. He would, theoretically, have broken down by then, but he was too busy trying to fight off an array of cords which dragged him into the ground and landed him in Pandora. Pandora History Jeremy was dragged into Pandora's Box on June, Year One, at which point he found himself in the Library. At first he thought this must all be some hallucination; perhaps he'd been driven too far and had gone into catatonia? However he was soon to find something a little darker, hearing from many of Pandora's prisoners that there was no escape. Satisfied that his psychosis could never create such an expansive world, he shortly moved onto 46 Emerson Road. He was frequently victimized by varying characters who wished to take advantage of his madness through torment, including Joshua Kiryu. The electronics shop fire marked the first attempted murder, or so Jeremy believed. Before any Government was introduced, he spent many months attempting to work out why and how the citizens of Pandora were here... and if there was any way they could get out. This led to his meeting of Sherlock Holmes (though he didn't know it at the time), who generally left a bad impression on each other. On August 15, a rather unpleasant event occurred wherein Jeremy ran into Pennywise, who proceeded to force him to bludgeon someone to near-death and threaten to devour him there and then. He doesn't like to talk about this. After that he barricaded himself inside his house and refused to leave until late-September, when he noticed he was starving. Returning to Pandora paranoid of everyone he met, there were still notable meetings between Jeremy and Dr. John Watson, who offered to help if he ever needed it, and later, in the Haunted Asylum, Alice Baskerville, who reminded him just how lucky he was to be human and mortal. As the Government gained more organization it seemed a department of Tax Collection was needed. Jeremy was the only applicant for the job and got it by default, though he turned out to be quite a formidable candidate. Although there was that one incident with a delusional employee attempting to kill him (which was Joshua's doing), this is around the point his life actually started improving, since, y'know, it was kind of a dark pit of darkness beforehand. He gained acquaintances out of his work partners and even avoided a rather horrible situation involving Jonathan Crane, who lost interest for the time being and left him be. (Who knows what the future might bring.) In December he also met Pennywise once again, this time facing him with Samus Aran. At first he was content to watch the battle and attempt to help Samus from the sidelines, however he ended up ending the fight with a well-placed pair of scissors to the spine. Somehow he doubted that was the last he'd see of the clown, however. Jeremy's work policies from back on Earth never really left, hence why he would go to rather insane lengths to ensure people were paying tax. He faced such a situation head-on just as he met The Medic for the first time, whose rather careless attitudes to medicine were both fascinating and terrifying. It was nice to know of someone more insane than he was - and who was actually happy enough to talk to him. In February he met Randle McMurphy, a man who surprisingly made him feel at ease and who didn't have too many cruel intentions, as far as he could see. During March he had oddly brushed himself down after an encounter with Hazama, as much as it wasn't too... enjoyable. He also tried to assist Keiichi Maebara in stopping Kikuri from wrecking the whole library. In a short period of quietness he actually felt pretty... okay with life in general. He had been through some weird situations but now he was finally reaching that light at the end of the tunnel. Or so he hoped.